Pat Condell

96 quotes found

"There are millions of people on this planet who claim to have a personal relationship with somebody called Jesus. And each of those people, it seems, has a different Jesus in their imagination, which is where Jesus lives. A Jesus who shares all their particular values and prejudices. That's what he's there for, after all. It's how he earns his keep. So if, for example, you don't like homosexuals very much ,you can be pretty sure your Jesus won't like them very much either. It's really quite amazing. It's almost as if he can read your mind. But that's Jesus for you. There's nothing he can't do... except tolerate homosexuals, apparently. As for abortion, don't even get him started on that subject. He's got plenty to say about abortion, although none of it actually appears in the Gospels, but don't you worry about that. He's dead against it if you are. And this is the beauty of Jesus, the magic, the miracle of Jesus, is that each of us can create him in our own image, and he can be whoever we want him to be. He's as versatile as Mr Potato Head. As for the man who it may have all been based on, if he ever existed, he's long gone, like Abraham Lincoln's famous axethat had both its head and handle replaced several times,yet was still as good as new. I mention this because atheists also have their own version of Jesus. Jesus, whether we like it or not, is a part of our culture,so yes, I have my version of Jesus, even though I don't believe in God, and my Jesus despises Christianity as the greatest swindle ever perpetrated. Indeed, if my Jesus ever came face to face with a senior clergymanor a televangelist he'd be hard pressed not to slap him around the roomand kick him down a flight of stairs."

- Pat Condell

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"They want you rootless, uncertain, susceptible, while they hold out the promise of eternal salvation, access to the kingdom of heaven, no less, but only through them, as if they control the only bridge over the chasm of hellfireand there's a toll to pay (of course there is) and the church bells ring: "Kerching! Kerching! "They might as well be selling property on Jupiter, yet they're legally allowed to get away with this fraudand to pay no taxes on the proceeds. And that's why the Catholic Church today measures its wealth in tens of billions, and if you live to be a thousand you'll never meet a poor televangelist. Yet Jesus never asked anybody for money. Jesus never passed around a collection plateor got people to tithe part of their income to him. Everything he did, he did for free. He had lepers and cripples lining up around the block, and not one of them had medical insurance (can you believe the irresponsibility of those people?) but Jesus didn't care. He healed them anyway, absolutely free. And when I say free, I don't mean free in a toll-free prayer line kind of way either, as in: "Call now, free, and there'll be somebody there to pray with you,"and take your credit card number, so that by the time you hang up"you'll be committed to making a regular monthly payment"to somebody who flies around in a private jet. "Not that kind of free. In exploiting Jesus to swindle humanity,they've also managed to swindle Jesus,because they've stolen his name and his identityand turned it into a commercial trademark. If he ever comes back he should sue. Now Jesus is like Colonel Sanders - they're just using his picture. The difference is Colonel Sanders was bought out. Jesus has been sold out. And so have you if you're a Christian. You've been framed for something that you didn't do."

- Pat Condell

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"If Jesus really was crucified as per the Gospels,he didn't die for anybody's sins but his own. He died because he posed a threat to a group of people with strongly vested interests and very savage values. You may recall, he told the pharisees point blank where they could find the kingdom of heaven.Don't look here or there, he said, look within. But they didn't want to hear that any more than the modern pharisees want to hear it, because they knew very well what he meant, that the kingdom of heaven is a state of awareness in the here and nowthat doesn't require the stewardship of professional clergy, and that if we took his advice to seek it within, not only would we find it, we'd find the strength and the wisdomto put them and their whole bloodsucking fear mongering criminal racketpermanently out of business. And because they lived in the kind of brutal societywhere they could have him put to death for his words, that's exactly what they did, just as they would today in certain Muslim countries. But you don't have to feel guilty about it because you weren't there. You had no opportunity to influence events. You are entirely blameless. And the only guilt that you need to feelis maybe a little passing sheepish embarrassmentat ever having fallen for this insulting nonsense in the first place. Anyway, that's enough from me. I'm going back outside now to consider the lilies of the fieldand to plant a few potatoes in the good clean life-giving earth. Peace."

- Pat Condell

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"The Trinity is an outrageous piece of semantic flummery designed to confuse, not enlighten. And it follows a basic rule in religion that, ideally, not only should the thing you believe be absolutely impossible, but any explanation of it should be impossible to understand. And the Trinity obliges handsomely on both counts, as these three entities - the father (God), the son (Jesus), and the holy spirit (your guess is as good as mine) become as one (miraculously, of course) while remaining separate, so that each is uniquely God, yet each is completely God. I know. You could listen to an explanation from now until next week and be none the wiser, which is, of course, the whole idea. We could argue about Jesus until we're blue in the face, about whether he existed and whether he was divine and all the rest of it, but some things are beyond dispute, and it is a matter of historical fact that the Trinity is pure invention by Christian clergy, so any Christian clergyman who tells you it's the truth is either ignorant of history or a goddamned liar. Which do you think it is? Yeah, me too. And this is what I reject. Not Jesus, but religion and the clerical criminals who run it. The people Jesus despised as much as I do. White sepulchres, he called them. Outwardly wholesome, inwardly rotten, and he was being way, way too kind in my opinion. And if I have to go to Hell for my opinion, and it seems that I do, then so be it. I can think of worse things."

- Pat Condell

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"In fact, since I said in a previous video that I'd rather go to Hell than be a Christian, I've been contacted by several people urging me to recant those foolish words and repent before it's too late. Hell is real, they tell me, Satan is real. And they say it with such conviction you just know they've got the information from some kind of infallible authority. Luckily, however, I'm quite looking forward to going to Hell. I've heard so much about the place it almost seems like a home away from home to me now. I understand it's likely to be warmer than I'm used to, which surprises me, as life is warm and death is cold, so, if anything, you would expect Hell to be on the chilly side, but apparently it isn't, according to those who know. I am very grateful that so many experts have testified to the definite existence of Hell for my benefit. It's a real weight off my mind. I was beginning to worry that the idea of Hell might be just a cynical ploy to intimidate weak-minded gullible people into submitting to religious fascism. How comforting to know that it's real, and that there really is everything to fear after death. Thank God for Satan. What would you Christians do without him? So before we denigrate poor old Satan too much, I know he's everybody's favourite bad guy and everything, the lord of misrule and all that, but the next time you're down on your knees praying like an idiot you might want to think about offering a prayer of thanks to the big guy downstairs, because without him in his essential role of universal bogeyman, none of this delusional nonsense of yours would even be possible. so, in that sense, Satan is your saviour, not Jesus. What can I say? Them's the breaks. Peace."

- Pat Condell

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"Swedish politicians are not right about much, but you get the impression they think they're setting the example to the rest of us. And they are right about that. Their recent bizarre decision to recognize 'Palestine' – a country that doesn't exist – is somewhat poignant: as the way things are going Sweden itself won't exist much longer. Seems like every piece of news that comes out of that country is more disturbing than the last. But, then, they have been committing cultural suicide so enthusiastically for so long there is now almost a sense that a tipping point is being reached and that, for the rest of us, it's really just a matter of watching the grim process unfold as we thank our lucky stars we don't live there... In Sweden today, democracy is a threat that must be neutralised, just as free speech is a threat that must be criminalised. Like the old Soviet Union, they can't afford to allow either because they're attempting to create an artificial society from a blueprint that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. And they've given it an almost theological significance so that a dogma has been established, and this has led, inevitably, to heresy becoming a problem. So now anyone in Sweden who expresses the wrong opinion about Muslim immigration is liable to be arrested, that's if the police are not too busy running away from violent Muslims."

- Pat Condell

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